Well this is interesting: Lip sync videos and other fan adaptations of pop hits make record labels more money that the official music videos produced by the labels themselves, according to a report by the Toronto Star (hat tip to hypebot). The paper quotes Universal’s global head of digital business saying calling fan videos a massive growth area, and adding: “We’re very excited about the creativity of consumers using our repertoire and creating their own versions of our videos.” The flow of money is largely due to the fact that YouTube gives record labels the option to monetize third-party videos that use their music, instead of taking them down.

“We’re really excited about cashing in on other people participating in culture.” Gag. Not sure what’s more disgusting, that the money for culture participation accrues to a small group of individuals instead of being dispersed to all the participants that gave it cultural significance in the first place or that the small group is largely a bunch of parasitic middle men.